Three Pots for the Poorhouse - Action Object

About this artwork

This work is the record or embodiment of an 'Action' performed by Joseph Beuys in the dilapidated, former Edinburgh poorhouse on 10 June 1974. Beuys used three new cooking pots, painted black, to represent the human attribute of thinking, feeling and will. He walked slowly around the edges of one of the rooms offering up the pots to each of the walls. The pots were then put on the floor and tied to a pair of blackboards on which Beuys drew diagrams and works relating to the 'Action'.

Joseph Beuys was one of the most radical and inventive artists of the second half of the twentieth century. A sculptor, draughtsman, teacher and politician, he was a generator of ideas as well as objects. Underlying his wide-ranging philosophy was his belief in the need to extend creativity into every aspect of life. He saw art as a vital agent for change and as a means to help shape a better world. In his proposal that ‘everyone is an artist’ he challenged every human being to become creatively active, to rediscover the spiritual side of their natures and to use ‘thinking, feeling and free will’ to transform society.

Beuys developed important links with Scotland, and some of his most significant actions and objects have an association with this country. He first came to Scotland in 1970 at the invitation of gallery owner Richard Demarco who positioned Beuys as a central figure in the groundbreaking Strategy: Get Arts exhibi­tion during the Edinburgh International Festival that year. The exhibition brought together an astonishing array of avant-garde talent from Düsseldorf. Beuys gave the first performances of his Celtic (Kinloch Rannoch) Scottish Symphony and showed his biographical photographic piece Arena, as well as his installation The Pack consisting of twenty-four sledges spilling from the back of a Volkswagen van. Between 1970 and 1981, Beuys came to Scotland on eight occasions, participating in actions, creating artworks, lecturing and becoming involved in political debates. He was clearly inspired by the people that he encountered but he also developed an affinity with the place and was fascinated by the landscape, history and spiritual resonance of what he called ‘the land of Macbeth’. The piece illustrated here is the record of a performance by Beuys in a former poorhouse in Edinburgh in 1974. In the action, Beuys used three new cooking pots, painted black; over the space of an hour, he walked slowly around the edges of one of the dilapidated rooms, with first one, then two, then three pots balanced on top of each other. As Demarco recalled, the action was intended to demonstrate ‘the three essential components that must be kept in balance in a human personality: thinking, feeling and will’. The pots were then put on the floor and tied to a pair of blackboards. On one of the blackboards there is a diagram of the three pots lying horizontally, and the other is covered with words relevant to the action.

Through his charismatic presence, his actions and his artwork, Beuys had a profound and lasting influence on an emerging contemporary art scene in Scotland. His Three Pots is a tangible relic from that period and a reminder, as Demarco has put it, ‘that his art, even origi­nating in a building associated with disuse and despair, was essentially an expression of hope for a better future’.

Since the purchase of this piece in 1974 there have been major additions to the national collection. In 2002 the Galleries acquired the Schellmann collection of Beuys multiples (or ‘editions’ as he some­times called them). Beuys is also a key figure in the ARTIST ROOMS collection which includes important sculptures and a large group of drawings, amounting to one of the most significant holdings of the artist’s work outside Germany.

This text was originally published in 100 Masterpieces: National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2015.

Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys

German artist Beuys believed that art was integral to everyday life. His own art was shaped by an experience early in his life. As a Luftwaffe pilot during the war, Beuys was shot down over the Crimea and was saved by nomadic Tartars. Barely alive, he was wrapped in felt…